Al Shei forced herself not to turn away. “That might be a good idea.”
Resit measured her carefully with a lawyer’s eye. “You’re going to hire Usyal to try to identify what Tully stole, aren’t you?”
“I never said that.” Al Shei wrapped her hijab across her face.
“Katmer.” Resit laid a hand on Al Shei’s forearm. “Eventually, Ruqaiyya is going to have to face the fact that she married an anti-social nit-wit. You aren’t going to be able to keep that from her much longer.”
“I don’t intend to.” Al Shei pulled away. “But I do intend to find out what I’ve got to nail them both with first.”
Resit raised her hand. “As your lawyer, I do not want to hear the rest of this.” She pulled open the bathroom door. “But I’m really glad you decided to spring for the updates,” she added over her shoulder.
“We won’t need them,” said Al Shei. But as the door closed she added, “God willing and the creeks don’t rise.”
Al Shei shook herself and walked over to the desk
“Intercom to comm center,” she called as she sat down.
“Lipinski here.”
“I need a fast time line to Earth, Bala house, ID specifically for Asil Tamruc.”
Lipinski muttered something she didn’t catch, so it was probably directed at the wall, and she probably didn’t want to know what it was anyway. “Right. I’ll route it up there as soon as it’s open.”
Al Shei stared at the blank view screen and tried to force at least some of her worry into perspective. The worst had not happened. The ship was not incapacitated in any way. The data from Amory Dane to New Medina hospital was intact. The hospital had already said they’d accept delivery and deliver full payment if the data cleared their virus screens. She already knew Tully had done something illegal. Now it was just a question of how illegal it was. There were lots of degrees of illegality, especially for crackers.
That, Al Shei realized, was exactly what was worrying her.
The view screen flashed into life and Asil smiled across light years at her. The wall behind him had a pair of extra memory boards on it. It was the house’s main communication’s room. Old-fashioned and formal, her family felt that heavy business or recreational systems use should have its own area separate from the places where people interacted with each other.
Al Shei tried to tell herself that finding Asil there was not necessarily a bad sign. “Salam, Beloved.” She undid her hijab so he could see her smile. “Do you have news for me?”
“Salam, and yes, I do.” The quick smile faded from his face. “Not much though, and what there is — it’s not good.”
Al Shei strangled a sigh. “I’m braced, Asil. What is it?”
“The records on this end show a two substantial deposits made into the corporation accounts by Marcus Tully during the previous eight months. This is normal. I have the downloads of the Pasadena’s logs, and they detail the contracts and the deliveries that resulted in the income. I have records from Port Oberon, Port Ursula, and Taylor’s Crash that say the Pasadena was exactly where the log says it was.”
He paused, and Al Shei felt her hands curl in on themselves. “This is the part where you tell me what you don’t have.”
“Fuel purchase records.” Asil swept one hand out across the boards. “None of the tankers in any of those systems have records of fueling or watering the Pasadena at any point during those eight months.” He glowered at the boards for a moment before he looked up again and saw her gawping. “I had to be thorough,” he said. “He is a first-rate cracker and we’ve both suspected he’s a forger for some time now.”
Al Shei rubbed her face with both hands. “He must have faked that log after the download. Schyler would never have stood for him faking it on board.”
“I know.”
She raised her eyes again. “Anything else?”
“Queries in the works. I’m afraid making heavy use of Uncle Ahmet’s name to access security tapes — ”
Al Shei blanched. “Asil, you didn’t tell him.”
“No, I didn’t, Beloved,” he said quietly. “I told him we were in receipt of a suspicious contract proposal.” He paused again. “This has to be the end of the partnership, though, Katmer. We both want the Mirror of Fate, but not this badly.”
“How long are you going to let him keep stealing fodder and labor?” She murmured to her hands. “I know, Asil. Zubedye has been telling me the same thing, and you’re both right.”
He reached up and touched his hand to the screen. “It doesn’t have to be the end of our plans, Katmer. We’re very close. A loan or two backed by your family name, and we can do it. I don’t like debt service either, but I’ve got some payment scenarios working on my private terminal even as we speak.” His voice hardened. “I will not have Marcus Tully tainting what we’ve worked for.”
Al Shei pressed her palm against his. “Neither will I. But as long as Ruqaiyya refuses to divorce him, anything he goes through reflects on her, and the news grubbers will be in ecstasies over it. ‘Member of prominent banking family found guilty of — ’” She waved her hand aimlessly. “Whatever it is. I still want to find out what he’s done and use it to convince him to walk away quietly.”
Asil gave her a long look. “From Pasadena or from Ruqaiyya?”
“If this gets put on the wire, it will kill her, Asil, and if it becomes a police matter, it will get onto the wire.”
His sigh was so soft that the intercom barely picked it up. “You’re right about that, on both counts. All right, Beloved, I’ll find out what I can.”
“Thank you, Asil. I’ll call in from The Vicarage.”
“May it go easily. I love you.”
“I love you.” They exchanged soft smiles that spoke of love as much as their words did, and Al Shei closed the connection down.
She sat where she was for a long moment before she managed to rewrap her hijab and force herself onto her feet.
You still have work to do. Al Shei pulled her pack out of its drawer. No matter what else happens, you have work to do.
Fastening the straps around her shoulders, she left her cabin to meet Lipinski at the airlock.
The Houston was waiting for her with his tool kit in one hand and a duffle slung over his shoulder. There was something sour in his expression as he clasped the shore-leave band around his wrist.
“Not enough coffee?” inquired Al Shei, putting on her own band. The bands would allow the Farther Kingdom’s satellite system to track them down if someone needed to contact them.
“Not enough something.” He laid his hand against the palm reader. Both of the air lock doors rolled back and Lipinski strode out into the station.
“And you don’t want to talk about it, I can tell,” murmured Al Shei into her hijab as she followed him.
Although it was a populous colony, The Farther Kingdom didn’t see anything approaching the amount of traffic of the Solar system, so The Gate didn’t require the complex organization of the Uranus ports. The Gate, had only a single ring of habitat modules attached to its core. Unlike Oberon, the docking was controlled entirely by the station’s AI. There, Yerusha had proved one advantage of having a freer pilot. For the first time, no one complained about the auto-docking procedures. Yerusha pulled the maneuvers off as smoothly as Al Shei had ever felt.
Also unlike Port Oberon, The Gate was simply a warehouse and workshop. Shippers either stayed berthed in their vessels or went down to the planet surface. There were no hotel or entertainment facilities. There wasn’t even a market. Required goods were bought directly or remotely from the surface and shuttled up to the station where they were held for pick-up. Al Shei felt a sympathetic twinge for Yerusha. Freers could not, or would not, set foot groundside. Most of them drew the line at even entering a planet’s atmosphere. True human freedom, they said, came when humans lived in the environments they created entirely for themselves. Al Shei made a mental note to tell the Sundars that Yerusha would need to be nagged to get off the ship for at least a little while. Freer or not, the human mind did not function well staring at the same walls all the time. A stir-crazy pilot was not what she needed.